Chapter One
The car stuttered… “No, no, no” …gasped and choked and bucked… “No, no, no” …and kept going.
“That’s it baby.” Covington rubbed a hand on the dash and prayed her beat-up Cavalier Z24 would make the last few miles. “Just a little more. It’s not far now and I promise when we get there you can stop, fall apart or die. Whatever you want. Just give me a little more.Please,” she begged.
When the car continued up the road she let out a slow breath and tried to focus on the positives—the car was still moving and she was getting closer to her destination with each mile—but it was hard to keep an upbeat attitude when nothing had turned out the way it was supposed to.
For one thing, she was freezing. The aged heating system and flimsy roof of her convertible couldn’t compete with the cold seeping through every nook and cranny.
There was also the fact she was thousands of miles from home looking for a man who more than likely didn’t want to see her.
Oh! And the kicker. She was four months pregnant.
Withtwins.
Sniffling, she turned the heater nob another notch and hoped the change didn’t cause the car to quit. The engine didn’t die but the air blasting through the vents didn’t get any warmer either.
“He probably hates me,” she muttered, the white cloud forming in front of her face growing bigger with every word.
She hadn’t seen Tristan Harding since the morning she’d kicked him out of her bed.
Four months ago.
By the time she’d gotten over the fact she’d slept with him. Over the fact he wasn’t the man who’d put a ring on her finger. Over the fact she’d felt far more for Tris than she ever had for Dirk. Over her own stupid embarrassment and shame…
Tris was gone.
She didn’t dare ask anyone where he’d disappeared to though.
Especially not Dirk. After catching her fiancé screwing one of her fellow dancers Covington hadn’t said anything to the lying cheating scumbag. Nope. She’d taken off his ring, left it on his dining room table—along with the key he’d given her to his apartment—and driven home.
Where she’d promptly set about ridding her place of every little piece of Dirk and the plans he’d shattered by dumping all his stuff out her third floor window.
That’s when Tris showed up.
She’d been leaning out the window with a bundle of Dirk’s clothes in her arms ready to let them drop when he climbed out of his truck. Tris had looked up at her, looked down at the growing pile of crap already on the lawn, then brought his gaze back to hers and smiled.
She had to admit he’d made her tummy flutter more than once in the year and a half they’d known each other, butthatsmile, the way his eyes creased at the corners, the light breeze ruffling his blond hair and the scruff covering his chiseled jaw…
Damn, she’d fluttered in places lower than her belly.
Covington couldn’t say why she did it. Why she let him in, let him help her purge her life of the scumbag, or why, after a shared pizza, a couple of beers and some great conversation, she let him into her bed—into her body.
That was a lie. She knew exactly why.
The man had moves. His lips and hands had her pulsing with arousal with the barest touch. And he’d touched her.
Everywhere.
Not that he’d been the only one. Nope. She’d gotten her fair share of groping in before they’d stripped naked and engaged in the best, most mind-blowing sixty-nine she’d ever been part of. Her sex clenched with the X-rated memories flashing through her head, a tremor quaking her from head to toe as her core temperature rose without the help of the car’s ancient heating system.
He’d done things—she’ddone things—that put every other sexual encounter she’d ever had in the amateur’s league. Covington couldn’t explain why she’d allowed Tris to touch her in ways she’d never trusted any other man to do. And that included her cheating, lying scumbag fiancé.
“Goddammit!” She slapped the steering wheel with a gloved hand.
The car jerked and shuddered. Firmly wrapping her fingers around the wheel again she hoped she didn’t hit a patch of ice. She’d heard that could be treacherous.
Born and bred in Miami she hadn’t been prepared for the cold. Or the snow. There was no escaping it. It was everywhere.